Yu. G. Kusrayev

Suppression of electron spin relaxation in Mn-doped GaAs.

We report a surprisingly long spin relaxation time of electrons in Mn-doped p-GaAs. The spin relaxation time scales with the optical pumping and increases from 12 ns in the dark to 160 ns upon saturation. This behavior is associated with the difference in spin relaxation rates of electrons precessing in the fluctuating fields of ionized or neutral Mn acceptors, respectively. For the latter, the antiferromagnetic exchange interaction between a Mn ion and a bound hole results in a partial compensation of these fluctuating fields, leading to the enhanced spin memory.

Long-range p-d exchange interaction in a ferromagnet-semiconductor hybrid structure

Hybrid structures synthesized from different materials have attracted considerable attention because they may allow not only combination of the functionalities of the individual constituents but also mutual control of their properties. To obtain such a control an interaction between the components needs to be established. For coupling the magnetic properties, an exchange interaction has to be implemented which typically depends on wavefunction overlap and is therefore short-ranged, so that it may be compromised across the hybrid interface. Here we study a hybrid structure consisting of a ferromagnetic Co layer and a semiconducting CdTe quantum well, separated by a thin (Cd, Mg)Te barrier. In contrast to the expected p–d exchange that decreases exponentially with the wavefunction overlap of quantum well holes and magnetic atoms, we find a long-ranged, robust coupling that does not vary with barrier width up to more than 30 nm. We suggest that the resulting spin polarization of acceptor-bound holes is induced by an effective p–d exchange that is mediated by elliptically polarized phonons. Exchange interactions are typically short-ranged as they depend on wavefunction overlap, but a long-ranged exchange is now seen in a hybrid ferromagnet–semiconductor system, which may be mediated by elliptically polarized phonons.

Evidence for Mn2+ fine structure in CdMnSe/ZnSe quantum dots caused by their low dimensionality

The axial fine structure with strong positive zero-field splitting for Mn2+ ions in CdMnSe/ZnSe quantum dots caused by their low dimensionality was revealed. Magnetic resonance was measured as a variation of photoluminescence intensity. In spite of isotropic g factor of Mn2+ ions, the anisotropic behavior of the center of gravity of the resonance has been observed because of the high Boltzmann factor at 35 GHz and 2 K.

Exciton spin dynamics of colloidal CdTe nanocrystals in magnetic fields

The recombination and spin dynamics of excitons in colloidal CdTe nanocrystals (NCs) are studied by time-resolved photoluminescence in high magnetic fields up to 15 T and at cryogenic temperatures. The recombination decay shows a nonexponential temporal behavior, with the longest component corresponding to the dark excitons having 260 ns decay time at zero magnetic field and 4.2 K temperature. This long component shortens to 150 ns at 15 T due to the magnetic-field-induced mixing of the bright and dark exciton states. The spin dynamics, assessed through the evolution of the magnetic-field-induced circular polarization degree of the photoluminescence, has a fast component shorter than 1 ns related to the bright excitons and a slow component of 5-10 ns associated with the dark excitons. The latter shortens with increasing magnetic field, which is characteristic for a phonon-assisted spin relaxation mechanism. The relatively low saturation level of the associated magnetic-field-induced circular polarization degree of -30 % is explained by a model that suggests the CdTe NCs to constitute an ensemble of prolate and oblate NCs, both having a structural quantization axis. The exciton g-factor of 2.4-2.9 evaluated from fitting the experimental data in the frame of the suggested approach is in good agreement with the expected value for the dark excitons in CdTe NCs.

Exciton spin decay modified by strong electron-hole exchange interaction

We study exciton spin decay in the regime of strong electron-hole exchange interaction, which occurs in a wide variety of semiconductor nanostructures. In this regime the electron spin precession is restricted within a sector formed by the external magnetic field and the effective exchange fields triggered by random spin flips of the hole. Using Hanle effect measurements, we demonstrate that this mechanism dominates our experiments in CdTe/(Cd,Mg)Te quantum wells. We present calculations that provide a consistent description of the experimental results, which is supported by independent measurements of the parameters entering the model.

Electron spin dynamics and optical orientation of Mn2+ ions in GaAs

We present an overview of spin-related phenomena in GaAs doped with low concentration of Mn-acceptors (below 1018 cm−3). We use the combination of different experimental techniques such as spin-flip Raman scattering and time-resolved photoluminescence. This allows to evaluate the time evolution of both electron and Mn spins. We show that optical orientation of Mn ions is possible under application of weak magnetic field, which is required to suppress the manganese spin relaxation. The optically oriented Mn2+ ions maintain the spin and return part of the polarization back to the electron spin system providing a long-lived electron spin memory. This leads to a bunch of spectacular effects such as non-exponential electron spin decay and spin precession in the effective exchange fields.

Optical orientation of excitons and carriers in quantum dots

The optical orientation (optical pumping) of excitons and carriers in semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) is discussed. A brief review of main experimental studies on optical pumping is given. We discuss different manifestations of size quantization on spin phenomena— enhancement of the electron–hole exchange interaction, hyperfine interaction between electron and nuclear spins, etc. The peculiarities of spin polarization in doped QDs are considered. It is demonstrated that the Hanle effect is a powerful technique for the study of spin dynamics.

Linear polarization of the photoluminescence of quantum wells subject to in-plane magnetic fields

The degree and orientation of the magnetic-field induced linear polarization of the photoluminescence from a wide range of heterostructures containing (Cd,Mn)Te quantum wells between (Cd,Mn,Mg)Te barriers has been studied as a function of detection photon energy, applied magnetic field strength and orientation in the quantum well plane. A theoretical description of this effect in terms of an in-plane deformation acting on the valence band states is presented and is verified by comparison with the experimental data. We attempted to identify clues to the microscopic origin of the valence band spin anisotropy and to the mechanisms which actually determine the linear polarization of the PL in the quantum wells subject to the in-plane magnetic field. The conclusions of the present paper apply in full measure to non-magnetic QWs as well as ensembles of disk-like QDs with shape and/or strain anisotropy.

Nuclear Spin relaxation mediated by Fermi-edge electrons in n -type GaAs

A method based on the optical orientation technique was developed to measure the nuclear-spin lattice relaxation time T1 in semiconductors. It was applied to bulk n-type GaAs, where T1 was measured after switching off the optical excitation in magnetic fields from 400 to 1200 G at low (< 30 K) temperatures. The spin-lattice relaxation of nuclei in the studied sample with nD = 9 × 1016 cm−3 was found to be determined by hyperfine scattering of itinerant electrons (Korringa mechanism) which predicts invariability of T1 with the change in magnetic field and linear dependence of the relaxation rate on temperature. This result extends the experimentally verified applicability of the Korringa relaxation law in degenerate semiconductors, previously studied in strong magnetic fields (several Tesla), to the moderate field range.

Bound magnetic polarons in the very dilute regime

We study bound magnetic polarons (BMPs) in a very diluted magnetic semiconductor